Guild Wars 2

Who else misses the guild wars 1 fully customizable skill bar?

Guild wars 2 definitely has a brilliant mechanic going on with weapons having specific skills per profession, but I was hoping to see more skills for each of the weapons such that a player can customize/build/rearrange a set of skills for that weapon.

I want to mention guild wars 1 as a good reference even for this guild wars sequel because the warrior profession in particular also had skills restricted to certain weapons (axe, hammer, sword).

Im sure many PvP’rs would be excited and thankful for such an addition because it drives more competition. As for PvE’rs, there is nothing more fun than structuring your hero exactly the way you want it to be.

Thievies have ONE underwater elite skill.

enough said.

I guess were the only ones with this concern, Jaded. :/

More weapons and skills will come soon enough. My guess is they’ll drop a bucketload with the first paid expansion. As much as I want new toys to play with, I prefer they fix the skills we already have first. No sense in building a second story to a house that has an unstable foundation.

With more skills I’d also like to see the ability to rearrange the skills on my skill bar, being able to customize the position of the skills in my tool bar would make it much more convenient, especially if each weapon gets more skills.

Personally I’d love to see this. One of the most annoying things is that the buff on the med kit is #5 and is hard to reach over and over again

I +1 you, Rosella.9780.

When guild wars 2 opened up their Beta, rearranging my skill bar was the first thing I tried to do. I understand there are requirements of having a healing skill, and four utility skills, but I dont see a reason to have them fixed. Of course, you can always reassign them through a key bind, but that visually gets messy because the skills do not rearrange.

Jaded.8591:

Thievies have ONE underwater elite skill.

enough said.

So does Guardian, Elementalist, and Necromancer so take that how you will.

What they should do is allow you to pruchase with Skill points additional weapon skills for each weapon and customize the five weapon slots with. So not everyone is running aroudn with the same first five skills because they have the same class and happen to preffer that weapon. I understand people say balancing issues well there bound to add new skills eventually to keep the game fresh why not more weapon skills. Make is so yeah you have to unlock the weapon slots first for that weapon like you already do by killing things, but make it so once you have done that theirs more skills to customize your weapon with after that. This could also allow the option to rearrange the skills for your weapon slots as well. It be nice to feel like i can fully customize my entire skill bar.

mnwolfboy.9348

I understand people say balancing issues well there bound to add new skills eventually to keep the game fresh why not more weapon skills.

Either Arenanet or other players are too worried about balancing issues. Honestly, it has already been done in Guild Wars 1, so why not in Guild Wars 2? -_-

More skills please.

At this point it has nothing to do with balance, I suppose they just want the game to be boring.

Just look at the state of GW2, can you tell me it’s balance in either pvp or pve? We faceroll all content, glass cannon is the best option thanks to the insanely high HP pools with lame or non existent mechanics mobs have and conditions are just way too limited to be viable.

Pvp is either glass cannon or bunker. Meta’s don’t change, the game has been in the same stale state since launch.

Why? Because there is no shift in balance, not enough skills or builds to even change the meta if you wanted to. We have tried, and failed. If they can’t even balance what incredibly small options we have now, then they may as well let us have some fun and add in variety.

I’ve lost any hope I had of e-sports, this game isn’t GW1 pvp and it never will be. It won’t even come close to that level, ever. I’ve come to terms, so why can’t ANet?

+1 Rukia
Perhaps a small reply from ArenaNet admin can give us some peace of mind?
Im sure and I strongly hope, ArenaNet has packages, patches, and gigs and gigs worth of content including skills to be release throughout the year. I pray that Flame and Frost has new skills :P

I completely agree.

There are two threads I created pertaining (but not limited to) skill variety and customizability, namely Expansion Concepts and Skill Variants.

You can find the links in my signature.

Robin Skyshroud.1863:

Either Arenanet or other players are too worried about balancing issues. Honestly, it has already been done in Guild Wars 1, so why not in Guild Wars 2? -_-

More skills please.

I agree with you there, it has been done in GW1, all sorts of patches balancing out the skills and such, There really is no reason why they can not do the same on guild wars 2.

Honestly aside from more skills being added, I really hope they take advantage of the potential with the weapon skills. Each weapon per class should have a variety of skills to customize the weapons with. This could also give players a reason to have the same weapon for both weapon swapping slots cause they could make each weapon swapping slot using the same weapons but different skill sets equipped as well as giving players reasons to use weapons that they originally wouldn’t use.

If you think of it in a story sense, two warriors using great swords shouldn’t necessarily use the swords the same way, so it make sense that they should both have different skills for there weapons. I say +1 for customizable weapon skills.

The reason for the set unchangeable skills is because they admitted that Guild Wars 1 style was a failure becoming exponentially more complex when trying to balance skills.

They have said that:
The trait tree has tiers so it can be easily expanded.
We will have new utility skills.
New weapons for each class will come with expansions(on the forums during beta a dev mentioned saving things like a Great Axe for an expansion)

Torvarren.6295:

The reason for the set unchangeable skills is because they admitted that Guild Wars 1 style was a failure becoming exponentially more complex when trying to balance skills.

They have said that:
The trait tree has tiers so it can be easily expanded.
We will have new utility skills.
New weapons for each class will come with expansions(on the forums during beta a dev mentioned saving things like a Great Axe for an expansion)

So there going to expand on the tier skills, there no reason they cant add customizable specific weapon skills too. Skills specific to that weapon only for that class that can be changed around.

Torvarren.6295:

The reason for the set unchangeable skills is because they admitted that Guild Wars 1 style was a failure becoming exponentially more complex when trying to balance skills.

They have said that:
The trait tree has tiers so it can be easily expanded.
We will have new utility skills.
New weapons for each class will come with expansions(on the forums during beta a dev mentioned saving things like a Great Axe for an expansion)

How long until people get bored of those new weapon sets though? That’s just avoiding the issue. There needs to be a big pool of skills that WE can customize, not just slap on a weapon and have them locked in.

They could easily do it, too. Just how a thief’s 1 skill changes to backstab in stealth, the 3 skill (using thief as example) could be the dual skill, no matter what you put there. Let’s say I put death blossom on 5, it would be an offhand skill. I put heartseeker on 3, it turns into a dual skill and has a different function.

That alone would be major variety compared to what we have now… but no, linear boring crap is what we get. I can’t believe how locked in we are with almost no options in variety compared to GW1.

And no, GW1 was not a failure with its skill system, ANet did a tremendous job balancing. Was it a lot of work? Sure. But it worked, and kept everyone happy, and was the no.1 reason meta’s changed constantly in pvp and pve making fresh replayability all the time.

It was never perfect, you simply can’t achieve perfect balance, but the thing we should be focusing on is “was it fun”, to which I reply a resounding YES.

Torvarren.6295

The reason for the set unchangeable skills is because they admitted that Guild Wars 1 style was a failure becoming exponentially more complex when trying to balance skills.

That sounds like laziness and an excuse for Anet. Never ending bug fixing and tweaking is the life of a developer. Squash a bug, two or three more show up. Add a new feature then some other thing yells back.

They are bound to add more skills whether they believe their system will reduce balancing or not. Introducing a new weapon set with its own skills will still require balancing or that set and pre-existing sets.

League of Legends still makes new champions to play regardless of how many champions there are (110+) already. Even so, nerfs and balancing changes to all items/skills/ old champions are updated quite often especially when a new champ is introduced — a Guild Wars 2 great axe will be no different. If balancing is a huge “omg” to Anet and if they were to update us with new weapon sets, then I suggest releasing one at time in a span of several months to help ease balancing.

I totally agree, seems like a poor excuse to say that balance issues is the reason for lack of skill customization. And using the same weapon skills over and over forever is boring but allowing us to gain new weapon skills to change up and customize our weapons with would help keep it feeling fresh and not boring. Part of the fun of playing a mmo is figuring out what build works best and because there is a lack of skills to full customize your character with, it feels boring. It would be awesome to unlock tier skills or a skill tree for each weapon to change things up a bit. Theres no reason why two warriors using great swords need to be identical. Yeah you can change your Healing, Normal, and Elite skills, but weapon skills will always be the same and boring unless new skills are released for the weapon to change around. Releasing new weapons to the mix will be nice but it will suffer the same fate as the weapons already out there with the lack of skill customization.

Rukia.4802:

At this point it has nothing to do with balance, I suppose they just want the game to be boring.

Just look at the state of GW2, can you tell me it’s balance in either pvp or pve? We faceroll all content, glass cannon is the best option thanks to the insanely high HP pools with lame or non existent mechanics mobs have and conditions are just way too limited to be viable.

Pvp is either glass cannon or bunker. Meta’s don’t change, the game has been in the same stale state since launch.

Why? Because there is no shift in balance, not enough skills or builds to even change the meta if you wanted to. We have tried, and failed. If they can’t even balance what incredibly small options we have now, then they may as well let us have some fun and add in variety.

I’ve lost any hope I had of e-sports, this game isn’t GW1 pvp and it never will be. It won’t even come close to that level, ever. I’ve come to terms, so why can’t ANet?

I couldnt disagree more. Go run a Pug dungeon group full of glass canons and see how much fun that is. I ran SE last night with a group, and since I was a tank setup I was the one who carried the group through the dungeon. I constantly had to keep rezzing people, which led to me asking the group what their builds were. Low and behold, they were al glass cannons!

I find GW2 to be pretty well balanced, I cant speak to pvp as I dont do that and wont. I dont care about competition, I dont care about esports, I simply want to have fun, which I do right now

And are you saying that a glass cannon guardian has a high HP pool?

I am sorry if this came off as an angry post, because it isnt, merely an opinion that was not meant to inflame or insult.

I am going to predict here and now the folliwing:

By end of 2013 we will see a polish of all the current expanding they have been doing. Everything will be simpler.
By end of 2014 we will have more weapons, more utility skills, and more elite skills. (maybe even order specific skills)
By end of 2015 we will have a new race to play with.

ya, that’s a long time, but I like to bet it safe. =P

As said. Builds was Guild Wars 1 salt. Spent hours and hours trying something different and Fun.

GW2 needs those, most important thing from GW1 that made GW1 unique and best.

Jaded.8591:

Thievies have ONE underwater elite skill.

enough said.

Guardians have 1 to so stop Whinning!!

Jaded.8591:

Thievies have ONE underwater elite skill.

enough said.

So do Eles, and you need to buy 2 others first =P

Notsure.7028:

Rukia.4802:

At this point it has nothing to do with balance, I suppose they just want the game to be boring.

Just look at the state of GW2, can you tell me it’s balance in either pvp or pve? We faceroll all content, glass cannon is the best option thanks to the insanely high HP pools with lame or non existent mechanics mobs have and conditions are just way too limited to be viable.

Pvp is either glass cannon or bunker. Meta’s don’t change, the game has been in the same stale state since launch.

Why? Because there is no shift in balance, not enough skills or builds to even change the meta if you wanted to. We have tried, and failed. If they can’t even balance what incredibly small options we have now, then they may as well let us have some fun and add in variety.

I’ve lost any hope I had of e-sports, this game isn’t GW1 pvp and it never will be. It won’t even come close to that level, ever. I’ve come to terms, so why can’t ANet?

I couldnt disagree more. Go run a Pug dungeon group full of glass canons and see how much fun that is. I ran SE last night with a group, and since I was a tank setup I was the one who carried the group through the dungeon. I constantly had to keep rezzing people, which led to me asking the group what their builds were. Low and behold, they were al glass cannons!

I find GW2 to be pretty well balanced, I cant speak to pvp as I dont do that and wont. I dont care about competition, I dont care about esports, I simply want to have fun, which I do right now

And are you saying that a glass cannon guardian has a high HP pool?

Well you were in a PuG that’s your problem right there, the only reason for a tanky spec would be in PuGs for obvious reasons. In any competent group that knows how to dodge, glass cannon is the best option. I find GW2 to have some of the worst balance I’ve seen. I can’t even imagine a full group of tanks with no crit dmg just power, those insanely high HP mobs would take even longer to take down…

I wasn’t in a PUG, I was in a guild group.I just used that as a powerful example to get a point across. I am still new to this guild, so I don’t know if these folks are experienced GW2 players, new people, or what. I myself have only been playing GW2 for 3 months (took a break between November – March approximately)

I would say that its your opinion that glass cannon is best. i’ve been in way too many groups, pugs and guild groups, in several different dungeons (AC, SE, Arah, CM) and have yet to see a glass cannon spec outlive me in a dungeon. Not saying they cant, just saying that I haven’t seen it.

I would amend your statement to read: Glass cannons can perform very well in dungeons

I would still very heartily disagree on the ‘best option’ bit. IMO most people should run dungeons in tank spec as your average person doesn’t have the knowledge or skills, or both, to survive in a dungeon (in EM, not story mode)

what is it about GW2 balance specifically that is making you say that?

I find the classes to be VERY well balanced, along with the mobs AI in the game. Its not perfect, but its better than most MMO’s on the market today.

Oh and I will be the first to admit that I am not the most talented player around, yet the other day I was soloing a champion mob in (Same zone as Maw, I forget name atm) on my guardian (lvl 80, exotics, no ascended gear) in a glass cannon spec and after I killed him I had 3 people standing there saying how impressed they were with the encounter, so I must not be a complete doorstop.

Personally, I am telling folks who are new to GW2 and runnig dungeons for the first time to go with a tank build until they learn the dungeon, then try what you want. I think people would have more fun at that point and less frustrated.

Crossplay.2067:

More weapons and skills will come soon enough. My guess is they’ll drop a bucketload with the first paid expansion.

Why do you think there will be an expansion?

I would love to have new skills but considering they can’t even make the current available skills work right, it is a tall order for them to make new ones.
Also they have this idea of making gw2 a esport which means they have to make the skills as balanced as possible for the sake of the pvp side. Less skills more restrictions means less balancing to do.

Move more weapons to classes that don’t have them :p We’ll get more skills eventually, I just hope sooner rather than later, throw loads in, balance them later :p

Robin Skyshroud.1863

if they were to update us with new weapon sets, then I suggest releasing one at time in a span of several months to help ease balancing.

1 weapon at a time keeps the balancing away.

I still think even with a new weapon added, I dont think adding a few new skills to be able to be switched out for each weapon per class would be that hard to allow balance. The skills would be still limited to that weapon and those slots just like healing is limited to its one slot and your normal skills are limited to the three slots, weapon slots would be the same, but with more skills to select for that weapon to customize the build a little more further. I dont see how balancing issues would make a good excuse if there willing to add new weapons and more skills to the skill tiers, why not weapon skills too. I mean you got to think there is a lot of potential with something like that not to mention with more experimenting with weapons. It would allow people more reason to experiment around with other weapons if there were more skills that were weapon specific to switch around with.